Bakrie Telecom (Btel), the CDMA operator with Esia brand is struggling. According to one of their executive, they are going to cut around 300 to 400 jobs within the company, nationwide. As per today, the company, which is one of the remaining in Indonesia beside Smartfren has 1.300 personnel all over Indonesia.
As we all know, CDMA business in Indonesia is getting more difficult and harder to compete with the GSM. Previously, Indonesia has 6 CDMA operators namely Telkom (Flexi), Bakrie Telecom (Esia), Smart Telecom (Smart), Mobile-8 Telecom (Fren), Indosat (StarOne), and Sampoerna Telecom (Ceria).
Telkom has already shut down their CDMA business and handover their subscriber to Telkomsel, their GSM subsidiary. Smart Telecom and Mobile-8 Telecom have merged and becoming Smartfren. While Indosat StarOne and Sampoerna Telecom's service has been shut down.
Back to Bakrie Telecom, the layoff will be started at Q2 this year and will be done gradually.
Just like my favorite quote said: "In the end, there can be only one."
